Never Surrender
by IAmToast24
Summary: Nesta trains with Cassian at the Illyrian camps of his youth. She is still in pain from the war. He is still drawn to her. Both are hiding from the truth. Fights, surprises, and romance ensue. Takes place after the events of A Court of Frost and Starlight.


Nesta has been here exactly one month. One month spent at this Illyrian training camp. One month of waking up at the crack of dawn and running drills until she has nothing left. Then it's off to specialized training with Cassian, who never takes it easy on her. She almost respects him for it. Almost. But after a month of this endless string of training, she's tired. Of course, she'd never show it, especially not to Cassian. Cassian with his hard eyes that sometimes go soft for her. Cassian whose fire seems to match her own. Cassian who is relentless in his mentoring.

"Keep your arm up," he demands, waiting for her to adjust her stance. He's been extra tough today. And his shoulders are tense. Something is bothering him, though she cannot even begin to guess at what. "What have I told you about that?" She shifts herself, having learned by now that refusing or talking back will only earn her trouble. He nods, and she begins swinging her fists again. One, two, one, two, each punch hitting its mark against Cassian's skilled hands.

The mountains around them are covered in melting snow, the remnants of winter fading into the mist of early spring. Nesta breaths in the fresh air, a slight breeze tickling her cheeks. Cassian's tanned skin stands out against their bleak surroundings, his tucked wings creating a shadow over the pale ground. She knows she must look like a mess, strands of hair falling out of her braid, lip still slightly bruised from her spar the other day.

"Nothing to say today?" he asks, his eyebrows slightly raised. She shrugs in response. Usually, his cocky attitude and comments irritate her, which may lead her to bite his head off from time to time, consequences be damned. But today, she doesn't care. Today, she's tired.

Not physically. She's gotten used to the training and the exertion it brings. In fact, she's grown fond of the feeling of strength and release that it offers. But she's just inexplicably tired. Like her whole soul is numb, surrounded by ice. If her sister and her court thought this mountain training retreat would fix her, they were wrong. The whole thing is pointless. Nothing can fix her. From the look on Cassian's face, she thinks he can tell. She punches his palm even harder.

"No fiery comments from the lady?" he asks, smugness in his voice. But she knows what he's doing, and she's not falling for it. Plus, there's a strain to it, like it takes effort to sound light. "That's too bad." _Thwack!_ Her fist connects with his flesh, the power of her now toned muscles meeting hundreds of years of calluses. "I like you when you're mad." _Thwack!_ Another solid hit. "Then again, you always seem to be mad, so I guess I don't know any different." _Thwack!_ "Well, that's not exactly true. Sometimes, you're downright frigid." _Thwack!_ "Either you're mad or you're cold, hot or icy. Two opposing forces held within the same body." _Thwack!_

"Do you have a point?" she asks, trying not to sound like she cares. Trying not to sound like he's getting too close to the truth. She must pull it off pretty convincingly, because he frowns in response.

"My point, Nesta, is that there must be something going on behind all that ice and fire." _Thwack!_ He's so close. "Something dark." _Thwack!_ Too close. "Something you're afraid of, something you don't want anyone to see." _Thwack!_ He shouldn't know her like this. He shouldn't be able to see so much. "You want to know what I think?" _Thwack!_ "I think it's pain."

His words strike a chord within her, an unpleasant one. And a breath after the words are out of his mouth, her palm is sliding across his cheek. The slap rings out across the mountain range, echoing in the empty air. There's a moment of silence in which he slowly meets her eyes with his own. His voice is low and gravelly when he finally speaks.

"There she is," he says, rubbing the affected cheek. "Wasn't sure you would make an appearance." When she doesn't respond he goes on. "An immortal life spent locking your pain away." He shakes his head. "Doesn't seem like a pleasant existence."

"Once again, do you have a point?" she asks, her words finding their way through gritted teeth.

"I do, actually," he says. "But you don't care, and that's okay. Cause you can't see the point in anything right now. You haven't for a while." Her anger is building, each word fueling the fire inside. The ice, the fire, he doesn't realize that it's all she has. That it's all that stands between him and the monster buried deep within her.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she says, the words clipped.

"I think you do," he responds, and there's enough pity and sorrow in his voice to turn her blood to lava.

"You wanna know what I think?" she practically spits, rage rising up to warm her cold veins. She welcomes it. "I think you're pathetic. You come here to this sad little camp to train these barbaric people who treat you like the dirt beneath their boots. You follow Rhysand and my sister like little more than a watchdog awaiting the next command. And now-" She snorts bitterly. "Now you come up to this mountain range and train with me to assuage your own guilt, to act like you aren't in pain yourself. Like you're not some half-bred Illyrian bastard." She notices the flash in his eyes at her words, his shoulders tensing incrementally further, and she knows she has hit him low and hard. She knows what to say to finish him off. "You're nothing. Always have been, always will be."

She watches as her words hit their mark, watches as his face falls, all pretense washed away by shock and hurt. And in that moment, he looks at her like she's an alien. As if he's never truly seen her until now. The disgust on his face almost makes her regret the words. But this is what she wants, or so she tells herself.

"You want to wallow in your own self pity, that's fine. You want to be icy and mad and miserable, than by all means, go right ahead." His jaw tenses and grinds. "But don't spew that bullshit at me. Don't act like you're any better. Letting your family starve? Letting your little sister go out and risk her life for you while you do nothing? While you don't even try?" He shakes his head. "I may be nothing, Nesta, but at least I know what I have."

Cassian looks at her then like he's finally had it. Like he doesn't even recognize her, as if he had truly known her at one point. Or at least wanted to. And maybe it's because he's all that she has left, or because he's never looked at her like this before, but she suddenly doesn't want to watch him walk away again. She doesn't want to to _push_ him away again. Not after Amren and Feyre and Elaine. Not after her father.

So when he turns his back to her, readying to march back to the camp, she surprises even herself by saying, "I did." He stops, but doesn't turn to face her, so she's not sure that he's heard her correctly. "I did try." He finally faces her again, his eyes hard and unreadable. She takes a deep breath.

"Sometime after my mother's death, and after...after what happened to my father, we ran out of money. We still had enough to survive. A week, if my estimate was correct. If we were careful; if we were smart. I had no illusions about what would happen after that. I wasn't stupid. My father was not going to get a job to provide for us, and none of us had been raised for anything other than being married off. I knew that I could not provide for us, but I also knew that I had to find a way. I had been thinking about it for a while. So, late one night, after the rest of my family had fallen asleep, I headed to the local brothel." Nesta looks through Cassian, her eyes locked in the present while her mind recounts the past.

"I knew the barmaid at the tavern below it, and she introduced me to the owner. He took one look at me and smiled." She could still feel his hungry stare. "There was no warmth to his smile, only greed and lust. And his eyes...they were dead. But I had expected nothing less, and though he repulsed me, though the whole place did, I knew from his cold grin that I would get the money I needed at that place." She takes another deep breath, not realizing how heavy a weight this truth has been.

"The owner found me a patron, and I took his hand, leading him back to the private spaces in the back. I was ready, at least I thought I was. I had to be. But when I went to close the curtain, I caught a whiff of a familiar lavender perfume. It was the same one my mother used to wear. And it reminded me of her, of my family. I wondered what she would think of me, of what I was about to do. I knew she would be...so disgusted." Her throat feels constricted, and she almost chokes on her words. "I imagined going back to that little shack we called a house and explaining how I got the money. Explaining to my little sisters that I had sold the only thing our mother had taught me was of value. And I...I couldn't do it. I could barely make it out of the place before I threw up on the side of the building."

"On the walk back, I silently promised that I would go back the next night, and every night after that until I could stomach it. I scolded myself for my ineptitude, my weakness. But the next morning, I awoke to a surprise. Feyre had gone out hunting, and she had brought back food for us. My little sister had saved us. And I felt…" She breaks eye contact, feeling more vulnerable than ever before. "I felt such relief, Cassian. Such relief that I would not have to go back to that place. But also...shame. That I was not able to provide for them, my family. That I felt such relief in the wake of that discovery."

"So maybe I dealt with it all wrong." She meets his eyes again, heat resurging in her veins. "Maybe I let my shame turn to bitterness, maybe I turned myself to stone. But maybe I was just a girl, too. Maybe I was just as scared and worried and desperate as they were. Maybe being frozen was better than falling apart."

A single tear makes its way down her cheek. She hadn't realized how close Cassian has become. Now he's standing right in front of her. He takes his thumb and brushes away the wetness, resting his hand beneath her chin, his eyes locked on hers without fear or hesitation There's that fire again, fire which calls to her own.

"I can't change the past," she tells him forcefully. "And I won't apologize for it."

"I don't expect you to," he replies, his voice as steadfast as his gaze. "But I do expect you to move forward. To not make the same mistakes."

"How?" she whispers, mesmerized.

"By accepting my help," he says. "By not pushing me away."

"Okay," she whispers. Then, she feels it again, that inexplicable pull towards him. A tether linking them through time and space and worlds. A voice whispering that she cannot run from this, from _him_. A word she refuses to accept, refuses to acknowledge. But it's there, it's always there.

So she steps back from Cassian, shaking herself out of his gravity. His brow furrows, worry and confusion lining his handsome features. He's not very good at hiding his emotions, something she finds endlessly intriguing about him. That he is so genuine draws her in. And despite all that she has said, despite whatever he might think, she can't escape the thought that he is better than her. That she would never deserve his defense or devotion.

The thought drives her deep into that familiar blanket of numbness, and she begins to wonder if she'll ever feel anything again.


End file.
